Two horses perish in Brooklyn barn fire
Two horses died, and a firefighter was checked over for injuries, following an overnight barn fire in Brooklyn, Hants County.
Shortly before midnight on April 6, firefighters were paged to the 8,000 block of Highway 14 for a reported structure fire.
“When I arrived, we had active fire in the barn,” said George Pineo, a deputy fire chief with Brooklyn.
Pineo said the small barn, which was about 30 x 30 feet (about nine metres by nine metres) in size, featured two or three horse stables as well as hay storage. The two horses housed inside the barn died during the fire.
He said the way the building was laid out, combined with the combustible materials inside, made the call challenging.
“For a small structure, it needed a lot of manpower resources,” said Pineo.
An excavator was used to help pull apart the hay so firefighters could extinguish the blaze. Pineo estimated 40 firefighters were on scene. Mutual aid came from multiple departments — Wolfville, Hantsport, Windsor, Summerville, Gore and Rawdon. Standby coverage was also provided by Shubenacadie and Greenwich.
Pineo said when they start tackling the deep-seated parts of a fire, especially with hay and dense materials, that’s when “it starts to pull in the resources.”
Pineo said one firefighter was sent to hospital to be checked out as a precaution.
“He was working on part of the barn at the back. He was just inside a little bit, working with some of the tools. He sustained a minor injury,” Pineo said.
Firefighters wrapped up at the scene around 3:30 a.m.
Although a portion of the barn is still standing, Pineo said he’d classify it as a writeoff.
The cause of the fire has yet to be determined but it’s believed to have started near the front of the barn.